Run PostgreSQL as a docker container

Why run PostgreSQL as docker container

• Easy to setup
• Ephemeral (easy to destroy)
• Ideal for development and testing environments
• Run multiple PostgreSQL instances very easily
• very easy to create a temporary isolated environment

PostgreSQL docker image installation

• Install docker in the machine. Docker Desktop can be used for easy management
• PostgreSQL docker image can be found in docker hub at https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres
• Pull docker image using docker pull postgres
• A specific version of docker can be installed using tags like docker pull postgres:17 . The supported tags can be found at https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres/tags

Run PostgreSQL docker container

• Run the following command to run PostgreSQL docker container

docker run --rm -d --name mydb1 -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=db_pswrd -p 5432:5432 -v "C:\dbFolders\db1":/var/lib/postgresql/data postgres

• --rm means, the container is deleted after it stops
• --name mydb1 sets the container name to mydb1
• -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=db_pswrd sets an environment variable POSTGRES_PASSWORD value as db_pswrd
• -d means the container will run in background (detached mode)
• -p 5432:5432 means the 5432 port of container can be accessed using 5432 port of host machine. The format is host_port:container_port
• -v "C:\dbFolders\db1":/var/lib/postgresql/data means the data of the container folder /var/lib/postgresql/data will be stored in C:\dbFolders\db1. The format is host_path:container_path
• postgres is the name of the container image. It can also be something like postgres:14

Connect to PostgreSQL container

• Use docker exec command to connect to the PostgreSQL container

docker exec -it -u postgres mydb psql

• docker exec can execute a command in a running container
• -it creates a pseudo terminal that allows standard command line inputs to the container
• -u postgres runs the command with the user postgres

Simple psql commands

• \l - List all databases
• \c dbname - connect to a database dbname
• \dn - list schemas of the database
• \db - list tablespaces of the database
• \dt - list tables of the database
• \dt schema1.* - list tables of the database schema schema1

View PostgreSQL container logs

• By default PostgreSQL container sends logs to standard output (command line) of the container
• Hence the logs can be viewed using docker logs -f mydb1
• -f flag means new logs will also displayed while viewing logs

Store PostgreSQL logs into files

• add -c logging_collector=on to the docker run statement.
• This will add a command line argument so that PostgreSQL logs will be written to a file in the folder /var/lib/postgresql/data/log
• To persist the logs to host, the folder /var/lib/postgresql/data/ can also be bound to host folder like

docker run --rm -d --name mydb1 -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=db_pswrd -p 5432:5432 -v "C:\dbFolders\db1":/var/lib/postgresql/data postgres -c logging_collector=on

Run PostgreSQL container with docker-compose file

• Create a yaml file as shown below to create PostgreSQL container from docker compose command

# dbContainer.yaml
services:
  db:
    image: postgres:latest
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U postgres"]
      interval: 5s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=postgres
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres
    ports:
      - "5432:5432"
    volumes:
      - dbVol:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    command: -c logging_collector=on
volumes:
  dbVol:
    driver: local
    driver_opts:
      type: none
      device: "C:\\dbFolders\\db1"
      o: bind

• A service named db runs a PostgreSQL container
• By opening a command line in the folder containing the docker compose file, the following commands can be run to manage the containers
  • docker compose up - creates the containers
  • docker compose ps - view all the containers status
  • docker compose down - destroys the containers
  • docker compose stop - stops the containers
  • docker compose start - starts the containers
  • docker compose restart - restarts the containers
  • docker compose logs- view the logs of all the containers

Database initialization SQL

• If an SQL file is placed in the /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/ of the docker container, it will be executed when a database is being created for the first time.
• So any initialization SQL scripts (like creating initial database tables etc.) can be executed using this method
• For example, an SQL file init.sql on the host containing database initialization SQL can be mapped with the container using the following in the docker run command. -v ./init.sql:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/create_tables.sql
• The same can be achieved in docker compose file also by adding the following to the volumes section of the db service as shown below

# dbContainer.yaml
services:
  db:
    ...
    volumes:
      - dbVol:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - ./init.sql:/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/create_tables.sql
    ...
volumes:
  ...

References

• PostgreSQL docker environment variables - https://github.com/docker-library/docs/blob/master/postgres/README.md#environment-variables
• Difference between docker volume and bind mount - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47150829/what-is-the-difference-between-binding-mounts-and-volumes-while-handling-persist
• docker compose file reference - https://docs.docker.com/reference/compose-file/